


A silhouette lost in the dusk of a broken land

by Kuro_Ko



Series: Maybe, in a different life [3]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, F/F, Past Relationship(s), Slow Burn, after the war, past lovers to friends to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:39:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27678878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kuro_Ko/pseuds/Kuro_Ko
Summary: Ingrid smirks to herself, she is twenty three now, almost the same age Mercedes was when they met. Ingrid doesn’t feel like twenty three, she doesn't feel like she is seventeen. Ingrid doesn't know what she feels, but her emotions are raw and untamed when they run in her heart and mind like sleepless beasts.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth, Felix Hugo Fraldarius & Ingrid Brandl Galatea & Sylvain Jose Gautier, Felix Hugo Fraldarius & Mercedes von Martritz, Ingrid Brandl Galatea/Mercedes von Martritz, Sylvain Jose Gautier & Mercedes von Martritz
Series: Maybe, in a different life [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2011939
Comments: 3
Kudos: 15





	A silhouette lost in the dusk of a broken land

Mercedes sleeps, and her slumber seems peaceful in the morning of a sunny day that blessed Garreg Mach. Her hands, marked by scars and by the old wounds battle after battle had inflicted on her, twitch slightly but don't tremble.

They stopped trembling for a couple of days already, Ingrid has noticed.

The knight sits in silence, no armor on her shoulders, no weapons at her belt. She sits and waits. Waits.

Waits.

Her hands are just as scarred as Mercedes's. Her fists in her lap are strong enough to hold a lance and fight for what she believes in. Her determination was strong enough for her to fight a war and win. And yet her heart shrinks each time she thinks of the woman in bed that sleeps her fatigue and heals the wound Luin caused on her.

Ingrid isn't one to dwell in the past, her drive toward a future she wanted to change pushed her through a long war they had nearly lost and won with a change of tides that in the future would be called divine intervention.

Ingrid isn't one to dwell in the past when she has been looking for a future she longs for and she thought she would never have.

But Mercedes is not only her past, it's her present and, even if she doesn't say it, Ingrid wishes for her to be her future. Mercedes mumbles in her sleep, Ingrid knows this is something she has done since they know each other at least.

Her fists are strong, but her will is tired. Ingrid knows there is till so much to be done, so much to see and judge, decide, do and undo. Years, centuries, that must be acknowledged and actively deconstructed. That is a task for scholars, not warriors, for statefolk and not an army. For a ruler and not a knight.

Ingrid looks into a future that holds many doubts, many questions.

Mercedes’s breathing is shallow, slow, peaceful.

Yet that future has a single truth that has promised her the sweetest of rewards.

Edelgard has agreed that the Galatea state is to be Ingrid’s to manage and to rule, the Emperor herself shook her hand and her commanding voice is all the certainty Ingrid would ever need. She is to rebuild her homeland following the example Edelgard will set up to the continent for a future free of the crest system. Ingrid is to return and turn her almost endless strength and vigor into helping those that the war left behind.

Ingrid is to return to her father, the one she didn’t say goodbye before leaving and show him a piece of paper signed by a woman he doesn’t trust and that puts her in a position of power over what was considered his land to rule by the deceased King.

Ingrid rubs her face with her hands and suppresses a sigh.

Life isn’t meant to be easy, she knows.

She knows.

They won, and her body feels like all battles have finally caught up with her.

Mercedes’s wounds will need more time to heal, however, and she is to remain by her side until she regains conscience. Ingrid looks at her and clenches her hand hard to keep from brushing loose strands of hair from her forehead.

Five years.

So long, so short.

So far away from the seventeen years old she was when her academy days arrived. Ingrid smirks to herself, she is twenty three now, almost the same age Mercedes was when they met. Ingrid doesn’t feel like twenty three, she doesn't feel like she is seventeen. Ingrid doesn't know what she feels, but her emotions are raw and untamed when they run in her heart and mind like sleepless beasts. 

Why is she by her bedside? 

What is she supposed to do? 

Her fingers dig into her palms, but she will not find the answer in pain, neither in guilt, nor in strength. The answer, with time, will reveal itself.

Time she now has, time she has never before enjoyed. Ingrid has time, and her rushing mind doesn’t quite know how to process that. The light is warm and soft and Mercedes looks beautiful and tired under it.

Twenty eight years. Five years away and so many things that were never said as they should have. So many words that meant everything and nothing at the same time, words that could build worlds or destroy them. Suddenly, Ingrid realizes she has the opportunity to say those words, to build, to try, aim and strive for the best, a leap she has to be sure of before making.

Their last conversation replays in her mind, she feels guilt and shame in her words.

But the answer will not be there.

The answer isn’t hidden behind the guilt a single moment spurs in her. It’s deeper, rawer, purer.

It needs time to reveal itself-

Ingrid has time, even if she doesn’t understand it, she has time.

And Mercedes does too.

Twenty eight. Ingrid sees now how different they were before. How naive she had been in her academy days, how the war took it away from her, tore it with violence and indifference, as if ending so many lives and changing so many more wasn’t its doing.

As if the maelstrom that had occurred for five years had nothing to do with it.

Her fists, strong and scarred, calloused and decisive, remain in her lap, useless.

Mercedes sleeps.

What does she expect from this?

What does she think she will get from this?

Staying up, guarding as a sentinel, vigilant over the sleep of the one her weapon had almost killed. Chained to a chair as dutiful as the knight she is. Ingrid wept in that chair, Ingrid slept in that chair and saw the sun rise and set. 

Ingrid is the ghost that loomed over wishing to heal the one she injured.

She, now, remains till, aware that days will soon find their way into weeks.

Time.

Manuela said Mercedes needed time.

Ingrid recites it to herself every time she feels her sanity is slipping away.

Time.

Her fists burn, wishing to take Mercedes's hand in hers. She isn’t allowed, despite how her skin screams and her gut bellows, she is not allowed. She might never be allowed again.

Is she playing to be a knight when nobody needs her as one?

Perhaps.

Galatea needs a ruler.

Freya needs her rider.

Mercedes needs a friend and a healer.

Ingrid Brandl Galatea isn’t any of those things. Ingrid doubts she can fulfill any of those roles anymore.

Mercedes mumbles and moves and her breathing, for the first time in days, changes. Ingrid looks at her, at the war prisoner for a second dumbfounded, and then looks around the infirmary, desperate for a healer to assist Mercedes in what could be her second time coming to life in a world that isn’t ready to treat her fairly again.

They are alone.

Where is Manuela? Where is Linhardt?

Where is anybody useful for the love of everything that used to be sacred?

She looks at Mercedes and her eyes barely flutter open as her eyebrows knit together in pain. Mercedes groans and Ingrid knows she isn’t fully awake yet. Mercedes would never complain out loud if she was with anybody else. She is the one to keep it to herself until the tax and toll is so high her own hands get scarred by magic she should have never forced herself to cast

Ingrid springs into action, covering the distance to the other side of the room where the medicine shelf is, behind Manuela’s desk, in long strides to jerk the door open making all the bottles rattle and ring in unison. A painkiller, anything she can use without casting magic will do.

Anything.

A blue vial, a sight she is familiar to, greets her. She snatches it away, almost dropping all the other bottles that rattle dangerously. Ingrid pays them no mind,returning to Mercedes's side, using her right hand to gently raise Mercedes's head and pulling out the cork with her teeth before offering her the bottle to drink. It is bitter, but no warrior is a stranger to it and, even in her painful dreams, Mercedes drinks from the cold glass. Drop by drop the painkiller numbing her senses and deafening the woman to the pain in her muscles, the agony of coming back to a reality that doesn’t deserve her and yet cries for her once more. When half of the bottle is empty, Ingrid carefully pulls it away from her, setting her back on the bed and leaving the open concoction by the night table.

The frown in Mercedes's eyebrows relents and Ingrid sighs in relief. She’s suffered so much already. Ingrid is not naive enough to think she won’t suffer again.

Mercedes is the survivor of a war her King lost. She has no freedom, no land, no family, no cause to fight for. She is bedridden and her captor is the one she used to love.

Used to.

Ingrid still loves her, she knows she loves her. A truth so blatant and simple her mind has never shied away from it. Even when the long day at war stretched and everything lost dept and shape, it was a truth she accepted.

It’s a truth she accepts.

Ingrid loves Mercedes.

Maybe she will always do.

She loves her and that is simple, yet everything around it is more complicated that she wishes it to be. At some point Ingrid thought they were meant to be together.

At some point Ingrid thought that love was easy and chivalry tales told the gist of it.

So naive.

Ingrid loves Mercedes, and somehow that coexists with the undeniable fact that they were enemies, that they had hurt each other, that they don’t know each other anymore.

Mercedes might love Ingrid as well and that wouldn’t mean they are to be together.

Their feelings are a part of a whole.

Ingrid doesn’t control the whole. She fears she doesn’t even know what the whole truly is. A knight, a warrior, a general, a friend.

Can she be something Mercedes wishes for?

There is no telling.

Not in Ingrid’s mind at least.

“Hey...” Her muscles spring into action once more, Ingrid jumps startled. Mercedes’s gentle eyes are on her.

She still has the same color on her sight, but it is covered by a layer of sadness, of sorrow that conceals them from the world. It pains her, but doesn’t surprise her.

Five years.

“Hey...” Ingrid sits back and busies herself pouring a glass of water for Mercedes. She’s been there before, she knows what is like to wake up in an infirmary after barely making it out alive.

She repeats the same procedure than before, helping Mercedes to take small sips of water that will anchor her back more and more in her body. Mercedes is warm, soft, tender, scarred.

She’s changed, but her eyes are the same, but now Ingrid can truly read them.

Ingrid is unsure if she wants to read them.

Time has changed them and there’s no coming back, however.

“Are you in pain? Do you want me to fetch a healer?” Ingrid asks, looking at the bandages that keep the wounds she caused closed. Mercedes shakes her head, she is lying, Ingrid knows, she was in pain just ten minutes ago, a concoction is to numb her pain not erase it.

Mercedes is lying to her and knowing it is a strange feeling.

Ingrid, however, respects it. There are things she doesn’t want to speak about too. They sit in silence, afraid of breaking the thin, fragile atmosphere they share. Afraid of speaking out of place and saying things that would never return to be unsaid.

Afraid of sealing their fate and saying farewell for good.

Merceds looks through the window and her face opens up in understanding.

“Garreg Mach” she mumbles, her eyes lost in the building that survived through the war, the long hallways Mercedes had walked and the stone walls she knows so well. She is, somehow, back home. “How long…?”

“A couple of weeks.” Ingrid doubts, she’s got so much to say. The war is over, Fhirdiad burned, Edelgard has triumphed and the Kingdom and the Alliance are to never be what they were.

She has to say it, Mercedes deserves the truth. Ingrid swallows, she deserves the truth, regardless of how Ingrid feels about it. Mercedes looks at her and her blue eyes silence her as they have done so many times before. Mercedes looks at her and she knows.

She knows.

“I see…” The woman closes her eyes and sighs. Ingrid knows she is twenty eight. She is painfully aware that Freya and her had gone for long flights every twenty seventh in the Harpstring Moon. She is painfully aware of how Felix and Sylvain looked at her every year after she had landed. How Dorothea smiled and the sorrow that transpired that smile. Ingrid knows Mercedes is twenty eight.

She knows.

Yet she looks as if time itself had taken a toll on her. As if time immemorial perched on her shoulders to rest.

Mercedes looks tired. Tired and sad.

Ingrid's heart shrinks in her chest and her throat closes.

Tired and sad.

Can she understand it?

Ingrid doesn’t know, she can’t know. She can’t know.

“Yes...” Ingrid clears her throat, still lost in her eyes. “It’s over,” and that little thing, that little phrase is the last stone they need to cement what’s real or not. The reality they live in.

“It’s over.” Mercedes repeats, and in her voice reality sounds like a cruel fact nobody can speak against.

The silence, oh so heavy, leaves them cold despite the spring that thrives outside.

It’s over.

“You need to rest. I’ll fetch a healer for you and will let you sleep.” Ingrid gets up, her uniform feels strange without her armor on, without her sword and her lance.

Without a battle to fight where she could prove what she is worth, what she can offer, what she protects.

Without her armor, she doesn’t feel like a knight or a general. She feels like a human that is merely trying to survive. Mercedes never stops looking at her, she has that strength in her eyes Ingrid has always admired, that wisdom she can only feel awe at, that silent plea she can’t but obey, staying there, looking at her.

Looking at her.

Asking of her the words that five years have kept from them.

Ingrid sits down once more and her hands are fists in her hap. Her hands that are strong and scarred.

Just like Mercedes’s.

“Ingrid… you saved me,” her name in her lips is a blessing and a curse, it’s a blade that turns in her gut and takes her willing heart prisoner.

Her name in her voice is a spell that never grows old.

Ingrid smiles and it’s the only way she feels she will not break and cry her pain out.

“I almost killed you…” she retorts, avoiding her eyes and feeling how the tides of her emotions raise through her heart and crash against her throat mercilessly.

“You could’ve killed me.”

Ingrid snorts at that.

“I don’t think I can.”

“That’s not how you win a war, Ingrid.” Mercedes says and she hears grief behind the tease in her voice.

“I…”

The silence is filled with unspoken questions.

“Dimitri, Dedue, are they…?” She doesn't need to finish it.

“Yes. It’s over. We are in Garreg Mach while the Empire sends the bulk of the army back home and things get sorted out.“ That’s a political way to say it. Mercedes nods and for the first time her eyes go to her hands, scarred by magic, instead of Ingrid’s eyes.

“It really happened...” Ingrid fears Mercedes will ask about what she doesn’t want to talk about. Mercedes sighs and closes her eyes, exhausted. “What will be of me?”

“I have yet to talk the details to the Emperor but…” What can she say? That she will be safe? That she will look after her?

The one that almost killed her is the one to protect her?

Preposterous.

And yet it’s the truth.

Mercedes bandages are white and clean, just as her scars. She is healing. She is healing. Her body is healing despite what her mind wanted and her intent was in that last battle at the Tailtean Plains.

What Mercedes wanted.

Ingrid clears her throat again, the atmosphere never quite right, heavy and uncomfortable, always changing. “For now you should focus on healing. I’m sure professor Manuela and Lindhart will be happy to see you awaken… please take it slow.”

“I don’t think there’s another option for me now…” Mercedes smiles at her and Ingrid feels the pang of guilt and shame when she does. She tries to smile back but she can’t.

Five years and they have grown so differently.

Ingrid has no tears to shed, yet they burn in her eyes as the ghost limbs so many warriors have lost and feel still.

Her tears, as her emotions, are tides that will find their way out, eventually.

* * *

The stables, so lively and noisy, fall silent and Ingrid stops brushing Freya’s strong neck to turn looking what created the disturbance. Marianne is quick to follow, Dorte a loyal companion next to her.

Edelgard, Fódlan’s Emperor is the unusual sight that receives them, professor Byleth in tow and their red and blue are a banner Ingrid could recognize even amidst the chaos of the worst battle. Ingrid squares up, cleaning her dusty hands in her riding pants, bowing when is clear Edelgard is there to talk to her. Marianne who had been tending the horses alongside her remains by a gesture of Edelgard that invites her to stay.

“Your Majesty,” even in her dirty clothes, covered by the sand in the stables and sweaty under the Garreg Mach sun, Ingrid knows how to keep her appearance before her liege.

“At ease Ingrid, Marianne. There’s no need for these formalities between us.” Edelgard says, eyeing them. “I’m here for your opinion as friends and comrades.” Ingrid blinks and looks around, the stables don’t seem like the right place to have a personal conversation with the Emperor, but she will always comply to a friend’s request.

“Of course, Edelgard, what is it?” Ingrid leaves the brush by her side on one of the barrels that are used to keep apples and carrots, patting her pegasus’s neck in the process.

“I’m eager to keep moving forward, but I feel like it’s a bit too rushed,” Edelgard keeps a hand in her chin as she uses to when she is up against a problem that needs to be solved. “It’s been five years of war, what’s your heart’s wish after everything that has happened?”

Ingrid listens to her and the single image of Galatea’s sky appears in her mind. Her father, so trying and understanding and defeated. Her siblings that swore not to rise their blades against her. Her land so desolated, punished and beloved.

“I wish to return to the Alliance and reconnect with those who survived.” Marianne says, her tone serious, her head high. She has grown so much these five years.

Why hasn’t Ingrid noticed before?

“Of course…” Edelgard nods and her smile is softer when Byleth puts a hand on her shoulder. “I understand very well,” her lilac eyes meet Ingrid’s and she knows her answer must be true.

“I haven’t seen my home in such a long time… not even when we were in the Kingdom I could return to it. I want to go back, there’s so much to do yet.” Ingrid crosses her arms as she says so. Her heart goes back with her memories to the place that gave her so much and took so much from her.

“I didn’t expect anything else from you, but I’d ask you to not overexert yourself.” Edelgard lips curve just enough to call it a smile. “You are right, however, there is still so much to do, so many battles and struggles we don’t know anything of yet but still occur. Ignorance is the worst enemy we must fight everyday.” The Emperor seems lost in her thoughts for a second before blinking and coming back to reality. “I shall see that you are given what’s needed for your trip, Marianne, Ingrid… And, if the occasion rises, I hope you will answer to my call.”

“Of course, your Majesty.” Ingrid bows and doubts for a second, aware of how the conversation shifted to where their loyalties reside. Edelgard has Ingrid’s blade, she will always have,

Edelgard has given her an opportunity for her to carve her own path and Ingrid has taken it, she doesn’t regret that decision.

Not that one, at least.

But Mercedes's future still is to be decided and she needs to know what will come of it, even if it’s a path she isn’t meant to walk.

“Is Mercedes well enough to walk?” Professor Byleth asks and Ingrid gapes at her and her ability to perceive what’s around her no matter the circumstances.

“She is,” her answer, short, is met by a nod from Byleth and a knowing look from Edelgard. Of course the Emperor and the imperial strategist know about her daily visits to their prisoner. Ingrid has returned everyday. Like a sacred ritual she spends most of her afternoons by Mercedes’s side. A pull she can’t resist or fight, hours they share that are both new and known, strange and normal, a routine they have fallen in again easily when they avoid the icy patches in their relationship.

Ingrid isn’t sure why Mercedes, despite being sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes unsure, asks Ingrid to return.

And Ingrid does.

Every afternoon she returns. Sometimes they share it in a silence that keeps what can hurt them at bay.

Ingrid returns and watches day after day how Mercedes strength and mobility improve, little by little, her injuries now a new scar that will tell the story in a single second for anybody who wishes to know it.

“Mercedes is free to walk the monastery under your watch or any of the Black Eagles’s company. I will trust your judgement when the time comes for her future to be decided. I have no personal quarrel against her.” Edelgard says, and Ingrid feels she is doing it for her rather than Mercedes.

Ingrid can appreciate it.

“The fish pond is lovely these days. I'm sure she would like to go for a walk by it,” Byleth smiles. Her smiles are less rare these days. Ingrid blinks and scratches her neck.

Marianne, by her side, giggles.

It’s as good a plan as any.

* * *

They walk side by side. Mercedes' steps are slow, tentative, but she keeps her strides steady. Ingrid is mindful to keep her hands from helping or catching Mercedes unless she needs it.

She isn’t the one with the right to do so.

It’s been weeks already since everything was over, and Ingrid is almost ready to go back to Galatea.

Almost.

“It’s a longer walk than usual, please let me know if you need to rest or you are feeling unwell,” Ingrid says for what could be the fifth time. Mercedes shakes her head and smiles. It never is a full smile, never a happy one, but Ingrid will take it. Dedue isn’t there anymore, neither Dimitri or Gilbert or Rodrigue. They have lost and killed those they loved, yet life has find a way to continue and Ingrid will follow it with a heavier heart but a clear mind.

Life continues and those who are there can see the sun once more reflected in the water of a pond that used to feed the monastery those years ago. Mercedes takes a sit in the stairs that connect the pond to the dining hall. She sighs and the sun in her skin is just as Ingrid remembers. Ingrid remains standing by her side, her arms crossed as her mind brings back memories they shared there before the world moved and reshaped itself.

Ingrid spent afternoons here, fishing, talking, laughing, holding Mercedes’s hand blissfully unaware of what the future held for them. She cherished those days the most, when she could be with Mercedes without missions or classes that kept them away.

When life had seemed simpler than it actually was.

It actually is.

Mercedes' eyes, however, are up in the sky, on the tower where it's said the goddess herself lived.

“It seems that professor Byleth isn’t here, that’s unusual…” Ingrid says to fill the silence that stretched. But the silence between them is deep and can’t be filled with light words anymore. It can’t be breached with small talk and innuendos of what it was and what it is.

Not anymore.

They have time, and time marches forward.

Ingrid realizes this a split of a second before Mercedes takes the first step and a chill wave of fear and grief washes through her leaving her livid and cold.

“Professor Manuela and Dorothea told me what happened,” Mercedes says. Ingrid closes her eyes, the crashing of the first wave of fear is now replaced by sheer panic. She has no smile to sport, her muscles tense and her silhouette is rigid. “Ingrid, please, can you tell me your story?”

Time marches forward. There is no going back.

Luin opened a path that Ingrid followed. She must deal with it everyday until the very end. 

Ingrid lets go of the air she has been keeping and forces herself to loosen her fists, opening her tense fingers. Her body remembers a battle that is already over. She sits down next to Mercedes, aware of how time is running and Mercedes is waiting.

The water in the pond is peaceful, calm, monotonous.

Ingrid fixes her eyes there and disassociates herself of what is to come, of what she has to say to make the picture complete from her perspective. The sun in Garreg Mach is suddenly so hard and the water bright because life continues no matter what.

“In Fhirdiad we besieged the city. The Emperor sent an ultimatum to surrender and let the citizens evacuate or engage in combat. Lady Rhea set fire to the city as an answer.” Ingrid sees the city and smells the smoke even now. She can still feel the inferno of the flames even from the sky and knows that she will remember that feeling to the end of her days. She knew in that moment, riding gusts of wind mixed with ashes and bright embers that threatened to burn them alive, that the image will be imprinted in her memory and will haunt her in dreams and nightmares alike. “I took the right flank, I commanded the same company of riders that you saw in the Tailtean plains and found Catherine there.”

Thunderbrand had been fast. Lady Catherine strong.

Ingrid had barely made it out alive, her skin would sport the scars of that combat as a reminder of the warrior she had defeated and the price she had paid to do so.

She stops, gasping for air, her hands missing the warm handle of Luin to feel safe, her mind going over each blow and the unequivocal feeling that she was about to die, that each blow was intended to end her life. The cold shiver amidst the inferno, the strike of a beast that was never caged and fought with fire in her blood to the very end.

The strength of somebody that had something to protect.

“I killed her, and when I looked up, the professor and Edelgard had slayed Lady Rhea.”

The silence that follows is heavy with meaning and a slow understanding.

Five years changed them both.

Ingrid’s scars burn as fresh snow in bare skin, her hands hang useless and her elbows rest in her knees.

She feels there’s more she should say. There is so much to be said, to be told, things history books will record and that she will not quite remember like that.

There is so much to be said, yet she isn’t one for words.

“Fhirdiad burned. The army spent days after removing rubble and looking for survivors.”

And the day a giant had fallen, she had dragged with her the city at the north that had seen her last day.

They sit there, like strangers that had shared the most intimate moments and yet don’t truly know each other.

Ingrid doesn’t know how long it takes until Mercedes finally tears her eyes from the sky and looks at her. Ingrid reads many things in them, stories she wishes she wouldn’t understand because ignorance is a blessing that’s never to come back to her.

Ignorance is a blessing and yet a foe they must fight everyday tirelessly, relentlessly, mercilessly.

“Ashe, Annette...?” Mercedes's voice is leveled, but hides the fear she feels asking such questions. Ingrid, however, understands.

“Alive. I don’t know where, but alive. I suspect Ashe hates me and that’s fine… I didn’t turn out to be the knight he and I dreamed about.” The sun is hard and the pond is calm.

There’s so much to do.

Her time to go home has come, she knows.

“They escaped?” Is that hope she hears? Ingrid believes so and the small sentiment she harbors in her heart grows.

“Professor Byleth let them go… Edelgard said we aren't here to kill but reshape.” Ingrid knows that those words sound empty and flat and that Edelgard says them with so much more power and dignity. She tries, however, as she has seen what they do in the battlefield and believes in it. Mercedes nods and that answer is the best she can hope for, Ingrid supposes.

“The troops are ready to move out,” so Mercedes has been watching the last movements in the monastery, the wagons coming and going, the farewell the Emperor gave Lysithea and Marianne when they started their way back to the Alliance, the messengers that prepared the regal way for the Emperor to return to Enbarr.

Yes. They are to return.

Sylvain and Felix have already made preparations and asked Ingrid when she would like to start their trip back home.

“There is no reason to have a full armed army if there are no wars to fight. We have our orders and our tasks to fulfill.” Galatea and her father wait for Ingrid.

For the daughter they had bid farewell five years ago.

“What will happen to me, then?”

And that answer is both easy and hard to give.

“Edelgard has given permission for you to leave the monastery as long as you remain under one of the Black Eagles supervision,” that person doesn’t need to be Ingrid, even if she wishes it to be so she can nurture Mercedes’s smile back to something that resembles happiness.

A smile she hasn't seen in years and if she had known the last time she saw it how long it would take to see it again, she would have appreciated it more.

“I see… then I’m your problem.” Mercedes's eyes go back to the pond, her hands folded together in her lap.

“You're never a problem, not to me.”

Mercedes smiles, but it isn’t the smile Ingrid is after. She could replace it with a grimace and the meaning would be the same.

“Are you leaving soon?” Despite knowing better, the small hope that lives in Ingrid’s chest trembles shily.

If only.

If only.

* * *

_ General Galatea, you have my favor, my gratitude and my friendship _ Edelgard had said when they left.

Ingrid remembers.

Riding a horse she barely knows she remembers.

The small silhouette of the monastery fading into the distance as the Faerghus cortege made their way through a land that was, at last, to be nurtured with water instead of blood.

Ingrid remembers.

Felix rides next to her and his demeanor seems displeased as the sun of Galatea finally welcomes them. In the inner pocket of her jacket the Emperor’s ordinance burns her skin through the fabric. In the sky Freya follows and in her back Luin rests, ever vigilant.

Ingrid remembers that farewell and everything that meant. Inside the wagon behind them,. Mercedes and Sylvain ride as their trip is the longest. Mercedes who is to serve her imprisonment under Sylvain’s supervision, far north out of reach of Ingrid’s voice and the distance her pegasus can cover in a day or two.

The Galatea land receives its lost daughter and in Ingrid’s heart sadness and joy intertwine in a sweet grief that leaves a rather bitter after taste in her mouth.

Her hands, scarred, keep the reins close.

Sylvain has sworn to her he will take good care of Mercedes, whose wounds are healed and her strength is coming back day by day. Sylvain will keep his word, Ingrid knows, she trusts him. The Gautier state will be good for Mercedes. Better than the Galatea state, so impoverished and with so much more work still to be done. Her old childhood home appears on the horizon, white and blue with spots of green trees as she remembers it.

For a moment she thinks it hasn’t changed. Ingrid knows better, however, and the cracks time has drawn on her family and home will soon find their way right to her eyes.

It’s time to say goodbye once more.

She stops and her mount neighs softly, she feels the rumble in her bone. Every sense amplified to a maximum. It’s almost as if she is to descend from the sky to the worst of the battle as always. Luin in hand and her reflexes the only real protection against death.

Felix looks at her, his features softening. 

“Keep your blade sharp, Ingrid. I won’t falter or fail if you call me,” he says, and that’s the most heartfelt thing he’s said to her. She smiles and nods.

Suddenly they are both in charge of their families and lands. They will see each other again soon.

The wagon comes to a stop, the driver looking at them and bowing with his head. A silence that weighs on her shoulders and deafens her ears reigns when the soft rattle of the vehicle comes to an end.

It’s time.

Freya lands next to her rider, her kind eyes are a question she will soon answer.

“Ingrid! Don’t you have a hug for me?” Sylvain hopes down the wagon and opens his arms. Ingrid rolls her eyes but consents, hopping down and hugging him tight, feeling his warmth and the strength in his muscles. She knows she will miss him.

“Don’t be a stranger now, would you? We need you as much as Galatea does,” he mumbles in her ear and her tears are hot needles that stab her side but she doesn’t shed.

“Please, take care of her…” It’s a plea, but Sylvain is kind enough to nod and accept it.

“Always.” He will, she knows he will.

It hurts still.

He lets go of her and Ingrid turns to see Mercedes, still in the wagon. Ingrid looks at the eyes she thought she would never see again and a wave of nostalgia clenches her heart.

“Mercedes.” Her voice is a strange sound in her own ears.

“Take care, Ingrid.” She means it.

“I will, so do you.” She longs for what they are not ready to have.

“Of course I…” Mercedes stops, doubting herself. “I hope your letters arrive soon…”

Ingrid smiles. It’s a sad smile.

“They will.”

“Good.”

And, as a spell, they are gone. Ingrid is alone but with her pegasus and the gray horse she barely knows. The Galatea state awaits for her, at her back, painting a background of white and blue and green framed by the cerulean sky. Her future awaits behind her, yes. Yet Ingrid can only look at the ones that continue their journey north.

At their silhouettes now lost in the dusk of a broken land.

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't stop thinking about this idea, I like to suffer, and now you have to suffer with me. I didn't expect to make more than an epilogue, but as you can guess, this will continue in more fics to come.
> 
> There are still TWSITD, Ingrid still has to face her father and all the work that has to be done in Galatea state. So many things to address as they rebuild this relationship...
> 
> In any case, you can follow me for more queer stuff in my twitter [ here!](https://twitter.com/KuroKR_)


End file.
